The Phenomenal Feminist is back!

So, it’s 2016 and I’m about to finish my first month at Yahoo! Inc. So far, I have had a great experience and I feel lucky to be able to be where I am right now. I graduated last spring and I feel like I haven’t really had anything to write about. But, I’ve decided that Phenomenally Feminist feeds to make a comeback. For those who didn’t read it or didn’t know me back then to read it (read article here), in my last column I talked about graduation and having a purpose in the world; the usual end a chapter kind of stuff. I wrote that I was ready for what life had in store for me.

I wasn’t wrong, but I wasn’t completely right either. I was ready and anxious to finally graduate and get my degree (a journey I started after high school in 2009). I wasn’t ready for the two months of nothingness that followed graduation. I had built up this momentum for graduation and after all it… I didn’t know what to do. I had no plan or direction because I was too busy trying to pass my last classes. I wasn’t ready to be pressured to get a job and feel like people were expecting more out of me than I could handle. When you graduate, especially in the months leading up to it, people seem to constantly be asking your what your plans are for after graduation. It’s as if they’re expecting your to miraculously have a job that will pay rent and all your student loans. (That, or they just want to know how shitty you’re doing) Jobs will come eventually, but most places want this little thing called “experience.” It’s when you have not even a year of experience and they want 4-5 years. I mean, I’ve barely been able to drink for three years and I JUST got my license this past fall. It’s frustrating and unfair — How can I get the experience if I need experience to begin with. Am I making any sense?

The point is… I’m learning not to be so hard on myself. I WISH I was in the financial realm of being able to do an unpaid internship, but I honestly never have been and honestly probably never will. I realize that although my journey has started slow, it is starting. Working at Yahoo! has given me confidence and made me feel like, yes bitch, you are capable and have potential and shit. I look at who I was five years ago and I know that I have changed. I am not the same, doubtful person I had been for awhile now. I recently told my friend, “I seem to always doubt myself and then prove myself wrong. I love proving myself wrong.”I am allowed to be proud of my accomplishments, which I feel a lot of people don’t do. I am proud to be where I am right now. It can only get better from here.